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Roald Dahl’s Best Villains

Roald Dahl’s Best Villains

In an interview with Donald Sturrock, Roald Dahl once said, “I go down to my little hut, where it’s tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again.” And that is exactly why we love Dahl — for his ability to get childhood exactly right. It’s a scary world out there, and tall people with bad facial hair and even worse attitudes tend to run the show, which makes life especially frightening to those of us who are less colossal or hirsute. In honor of the English novelist’s recent birthday, we present a group of memorable villains from his children’s stories. We suggest that you take one of the books below and hole away for a few hours, remembering what it’s like to be a kid. For more information about the English author, visit his official website, which is incredibly fun to navigate. Why not send a “glorumptious greeting e-card” to a friend?

The headmistress at Crunchem Hall Primary School is a holy terror; the tall, sweatshirt-wearing, “big-boned” administrator doesn’t hesitate to swing girls by their braids or lock someone in a small, glass-filled cupboard affectionately named “the Chokey.” With one look, she can strike fear into the hearts of all the children at Matilda’s school. Only a heartless, megalomaniac villain would utter the command, “In this classroom, in this school, I am God!”